APRIL NEWSLETTER REFLECTION! by Ms. Lloyd

Brandon Fryer

2014-04-23 14:39:30 UTC

The Majority of my time working on the project was spent interviewing Mrs. DeLong. That interview was then used to write our article. Our article was good because we had multiple pictures to back up what we wrote as long as multiple interviews to prove our points. We could defiantly add some length to our article by getting more background information on the projects we write about. This newsletter is ten steps up from the last newsletter. The articles were all longer and had good pictures and information. The table of contents was a great idea, it allows parents reading to find specific articles about their children.

Jacob Suchors

2014-04-23 14:39:52 UTC

I spent an afternoon interviewing a teacher in order to make sure we had good quotes and information for our article. We also retrieved as many pictures as possible in order to make the article more interesting and not so wordy and boring. I feel like we put more time into the newsletter this time. The video was a lot more informative then it has been in the past just needs a little bit of appropriate music. the table of contents is helpful and will make the newsletter easier to navigate. a few of the aritlce need some more pictures but other than that it is very impressive.

Michael Hammel

2014-04-23 14:40:09 UTC

I spent several hours gathering information in order to create my article.

I think that my article reflected a comedic response to the heart bleed virus. I think for the next newsletter it would be more beneficial to spend more time actually planning my article instead of just going right at it. I think that this months article has really improved, the articles are longer, and better in quality, but, there is a lot of white space that sort of takes away from the newsletter as a whole.

Ryan Johnson

ryan_johnson — 2014-04-23 14:41:02 UTC

I like the contents, it looks a lot more organized than before, the video is more professional. In addition sadly there was some blank spots which is not good. Maybe there could also be a little music playing like relaxing music so people feel calm while reading it. I believe there was enough color, if there was any more color then it could be to much. I like how the pages flip for every page you go to. But on the contrary I dislike the fact that the article fonts seemed small and some stuff looked crammed up like the pictures and the words to the article seem compressed.

2014-04-23 14:41:09 UTC

Elias Rosario- I spent a lot of time asking questions about the bridge project but being that I did this project last year i knew most of the answers. I thought the pages kinda lacked in color, and the video switched front horizontal into verticaland it looked funny we should keep it one direction. I think that my article was good because it went into detail about the design of the bridges. However the part that could be worked on is haveing team members turn their parts in earlier so we can get the WHOLE article in on time.

Vanessa Ann Marlo

2014-04-23 14:41:11 UTC

This month we decided to go with a new layout. Instead of using smore we decided to go with a magazine editing website called joomag. The total process took about 5 hours to put everything together and make all of the articles fit on the pages and make them flow together well. I'm excited to say that the articles this time are more in depth and fill the pages well. Hopefully next time I can figure out a way to make the background of the actual magazine pages a different color instead of just white. Currently, I am new to this website and know most of the commands but not all of them. If we continue to use this website, I'll need to take some time to figure out all of the different things it can do. I was more pleased with this newsletter and it's a big improvement from the last. A few things I want to change when it comes to people turning in their articles to me. I would like them to not put the pictures in the actual word document and instead put them as separate attachments in the email, when they're just in the word document I have to take extra steps to save them and it's more complicated for me. One last thing, I would like the articles to have their titles AND who wrote or contributed to the article on the actual word document you send me. Overall, this newsletter was a big improvement from the last, but there are still a few things that need to be fixed.

Clay McClendon

2014-04-23 14:41:22 UTC

Our team worked on the chemistry art project article. We interviewed multiple teacher, even the teacher to hear her thoughts about the project. Within the article we stretched the length of our article and added pictures because it would make the article more attractive and professional. We added a lot of information to give the reader insight about the project we did in chemistry. Our goal in our article was to provide a video however time set up between students and the teacher did not work out. Compared to last newsletter the length of the articles and the layout of the newsletter has improved.

Austin Lee Cratty

2014-04-23 14:41:23 UTC

There seems to be a lot of white space on the pages. When you are conducting the interview don't worry about including the whole body of the person and also come a little closer. The one with Paul and Nathan was the best. Pictures on all the articles. Maybe make the background of the pages brown to linit the white spaces.

Julio Santos

2014-04-23 14:41:26 UTC

My team and I spent the whole week given to us before the newsletter work day preparing for our satirical articles. The research consisted if staying up to date with current events so watching the news or anything of the matter in order to find what current events were appropriate to write satirically about. Positives about our articles were te quality of writing in our articles as well as the witty comments abut the current events my team decided to wright about. Things we could improve upon would be including pictures or any sort of visual to help with our sattrical articles as a way to help the reader incision what we are trying to express as writers. I like the new lay out of the news letter and am very pleased with the new way one reads the newsletter. Some things to into over upon however would be to add more designs to the pages rather than let it be a predominately white news letter. I just feel as though it is a tad bit bland. As a whole however, I'm very pleased with the newsletter minus the blandness and missing articles.

Mac Barrow

mbarrow7786 — 2014-04-23 14:41:30 UTC

There is a lot of more info than what there used to be. There are a couple of newsletter groups didn't put their part in there and they need to step it up. The video was good that talked about all the different project happening around stem. Although there were a couple of mess ups in the video overall good. I like the new program used for the newsletter it seems more interactive and an actual magazine. Some of the articles could have had some pictures or more pictures. My team and I spent a good amount of time on the article the team read though and looked for errors. We had a bunch of pictures so we could choose the best ones.

Charles Casey Martin

killaskilla99o — 2014-04-23 14:41:37 UTC

My team and I spent about an hour preparing for the newsletter, with classtime and outside research time. One good thing about my article is how it shows how there are students in STEM who have jobs outside of school and do a lot of work and being responsible in the outside world. For the next newsletter I can probably work on better teamwork because outside of school the communication was minimal between Dakota and I. I really like the new format of the newsletter. It seems to be more professional looking, and it isn't just articles in a line down the page because that was boring. I think there could be less blank space in the newsletter. I love the new format and I love the look of it, I just wish there was less blank space and more color and life.

Collin Deffner

2014-04-23 14:42:16 UTC

This time, we have a new layout

We have a table of contents

We have much more pictures

Longer articles

The background of the pages could be more colorful, because they are all white and plain

The video needs better sound quality and recording

, because it doesn't sound good. Maybe use separate handheld microphones

In my opinion, it is 1000% better than last time

Danny Helfer

danmcman11 — 2014-04-23 14:42:43 UTC

the layout of the project could use some more color throughout the entire magazine

Brad Dam

2014-04-23 14:43:32 UTC

I spent a few days getting the interview and pictures for the Bridge Project. Our article has some pictures and a couple interviews, which is good for our article. I can turn stuff in on time and have better time management. I love it. Some of the articles can be a little longer.

I would like to see some more videos in the last newsletter in May. I think that the videos are the best way to get out a lot of information in a short time.

Tucker Chaka

tucker_chaka — 2014-04-23 14:43:37 UTC

Luckily for me, my "research" for my article included watching Television! I watched the news every morning and I was able to get all of the information that I needed to create a satirical article about

Oscar Pistorious. Next news letter, I can improve by making my article a little longer. This issue of the newsletter is missing a few articles and need to be fixed. To improve the newsletter for next time, I think that the video could be more of a close up. All of the interviews were full body, and therefor the camera was further away and that made it harder to hear. The newsletter did improve from last and can still be improved for next month.

Caleb Baker

2014-04-23 14:46:46 UTC

I personally think the video was the gnarliest part of the project and that it made the news letter a lot better. I think we could have came a little bit more prepared for the news letter it self and brought our actual cameras and made the video better. We spent a fair amount of time on our portion of the news letter but we could have spent more. The news letter itself did come out really nice but could always be tweaked and fixed. We could make it more colorful and more in your face and I think it would come out even better.

Sebastian Reyes

john_reyes — 2014-04-23 14:48:30 UTC

For Cratty and I, we spent about a week gather info from athletes we interviewed. Something that was good about our article was the quality feedback we got from the interviewees. Something we could improve o would be to incorporate more of our own writing and less of the response's text. I definitely feel that this is a step up from last months newsletter with improvements in length and also quality of the info within each article. A suggestion that I have for next months newsletter would be to maybe use attractive backgrounds for the pages and/or overall newsletter.

Danny Helfer

danmcman11 — 2014-04-23 14:52:54 UTC

four our article we spent the most time gathering pictures since the project was for the chemistry art project. so we made sure to try to put as many pictures in our article as we possible could showcasing the talent that stem kids have even when painting a picture. i am very pleased with the article and even more pleased withe pictues of the art that the students created.

Ridge Hanson

2014-04-23 14:53:17 UTC

We spend a good amount of time preparing to write our article. We looked for people to interview and pictures to have for about two days. Something good about our article was the face that we had two different interviews, and pictures as well. This newsletter was far better than the one before. For the next newsletter, i think we should have the really long essays shortened up a little bit so that they don't look big and jam packed together. For the next newsletter, my group and I could do better by getting better pictures from our projects to further make the project look good.

David Bricker

FortroxRecon — 2014-04-23 14:54:14 UTC

Collin and I had about a couple of days to complete our article because it was assigned to us on the workday. I think our article was very informative and helpful for people wondering about ePortfolios. Improvements that we could make for next newsletter is try and get our article sooner so we can not feel rushed to complete the article. The newsletter overall is pretty cool and new and I like the design of it but I think it could be spiced up a bit with more colors and eye candy for each page instead of an article and some pictures, because that is boring. It needs to be more inviting for the reader with an eye catcher.

Cole Usher

2014-04-23 14:56:05 UTC

We used our time wisely recording interviews for the newsletter and interviewed a teacher on a major project to let outside people know what is going on in the STEM academy. for next newsletter we could add some music to the video to make the video more interesting. for the next newsletter make the background colorful I guess, just something to make it pop.

Kyra Hays

kyra_hays — 2014-04-23 16:10:50 UTC

With Skyler, Karina, and I took our time gathering pictures from several social media websites and talking with people who were related to or in the pictures getting quotes that were about the pictures or related to what is going on in STEM or around them. STEM in photos was a good representation about things that are occurring in STEM and to showcase projects, activities, and people that appear and are in the academy. The next newsletter if we were doing the same article I would want to change how we were able to acquire the pictures and instead of just getting past events, I would want to get current events with photos for projects that were just completed or events that STEM recently participated in. Well, right now multiple articles are absent from the newsletter and there are blank spaces all in certain places. I have no suggestions for the next newsletter other than to get people to turn their articles in on time for the newsletter to be complete and with no spaces all over the pages.

Chance Hutson

c_hutson — 2014-04-23 16:12:09 UTC

We had talked to figure out what was needed in the article we had talked and got together some of the things that were needed. We talked to some of the freshman and got pictures of the machines that the freshmen built we had talked about what was needed in the article and what was the requierments that the machines were built to.

Mia Zaro

2014-04-23 16:12:10 UTC

when starting the April newsletter me and my partner spent time outside of class preparing for the actual newsletter work day to insure that he had enough research and information to make our article entertaining and a well representation of the stem academy. our article was about the big event and was unique in the way that we embedded video interview from teachers and students within stem. As far as the next newsletter goes I feel that I have room to improve by collecting more information than I did this time. When evaluating the April newsletter I was drawn into the new layout I like how it looks like and actual magazine, but I did notice that there where a couple of articles missing and a lack of pictures on some pages. suggestions that I feel would be effective to help improve the newsletter quality would be to give students 2 class work days in a row to insure that ALL articles are done!! and that they are quality work

Briana Maskell

2014-04-23 16:12:12 UTC

In my article I spent two week before working on the background of the story its self and also going into a in depth conversation with Mrs. Lloyd over the creation of the story with editing over and over and changes over little details.

Spending more time on the story and more detail with over the characters and the life of the freshman imaginary student, while also making sure to get Mrs. Lloyd point of view but, getting it in on time next time.

Karina Chavez

2014-04-23 16:12:26 UTC

I spent our work day in class searching through social medias trying to find pictures to put into "STEM in photos. We didn't really have an article, we were given the task to gather pictures in order to show how STEM works and the things done in STEM, which was fun because it was virtual and we took advantage into showing something new into the Newsletter. For the next newsletter, we should keep the STEM in Photos portion because it allows readers who know nothing about STEM to see things that are going on or that we have done each six weeks

Heather Spears

heather_spears — 2014-04-23 16:12:35 UTC

I spent most of my time getting the Advice column out there so that the STEM students would have a chance to send in their questions. This newsletter only had one question to get sent in so it was answered to the best of my ability that would help out the student and retain it's school appropriateness. Next time, if we continue with the advice column, I hope that there will be more questions that can be answered. I want to work more efficiently on editing the layout because the layout was good the way it was before Vanessa fixed it to fit in her classes work and I didn't know because she didn't tell me she changed it when she put all of her classes work on there. I will be going on joomag tonight to fit in what everyone just emailed to me that they didn't email before.

Richard Warren

richard_warren — 2014-04-23 16:12:41 UTC

I spent all the time given to schedule the interviews, create questions that can be used for the interviews, sending emails out to people that participated, or are admins of the event, and finally interview a STEM teacher and STEM student. The article itself did not take long, however, I did accidently deleted the article, while showing my dad how to use Exel, but even with the delay, I still was able to turn in the article on time. My article contains STEM perspectives on a school wide event, thus showing STEM cares about its environment and community. Another trait that our article possess is that it gives an overview on The Big event and explains the views of a facilitator and student on the big event. I honestly think the article I have summited was the best that anybody could have written on that subject, however, I can use more vocabulary. My impression on this article is that it improved greatly, but still it is lacking articles, which upsets me because I put a lot of effort into my article and I want to be represented with a group of people that try just as hard as me. I suggest that there should be more videos, because come on we live in a world full of advance technology and that the newsletter should be more interactive. Just wanted to tell you that any article you give me, I will have it done on time and the best it could possibly be.

Josh Selman

joshuaselman1 — 2014-04-23 16:13:56 UTC

My team (Corey Mallon and Michael Morgan) and I spent time out side of school gathering different Interviews and coming up with pictures that could be used for the Newsletter. The good part about our article was the use of multiple Interviews by different people that had gone to TSA. The one place that we could improve in is maybe incorporate a video to help show what these articles are. The article could have been much better but we were missing some articles that could really help. Next time every group needs to turn in their respective articles on time so we can send out the Newsletter with everything in it.

Beau Rasberry

rasberry_beau — 2014-04-23 16:14:05 UTC

I spent a large amount of time trying to gather stem graduates to interview. I was trying to find someone who has used their stem knowledge in their major during college. There were multiple people who chose engineering majors but none quite stood out or wanted to take the time to be interviewed by Koby and I. No one wanted to sit down and talk with us about their engineering major, until Danielle Cassidy came to visit her friends in the stem academy. Danielle agreed to let us interview her for our stem graduates article. The good part about our article was the video interview and how we incorporated it into our article. We can improve our newsletter next month by turning in our article to the right person and not the teacher. My overall impression of this newsletter is that we incorporated our new ideas, however the articles were not all written to an outstanding degree. I feel like the next newsletter could be improved if the authors spent more time on their articles and made them more in depth in order to get a real inside view of the stem academy. Just as a side not I feel like the articles should be uploaded to a forum and not have to be sent to multiple people. This would allow the editors to get the articles from the forum and not have to worry about losing the article or for unforeseen circumstances to delete the article.

Corey Mallon

2014-04-23 16:14:13 UTC

The process for creating TSA in STEM began 3 days before the work day. Each member of the team for the article needed to conduct one interview, each, and bring the interview to the work day. The April newsletter's articles are very well written, compared to previous issues. The articles are written using different techniques and have really come together to create an issue that represents the STEM academy well, aside from the missing articles. To improve the next issue deadlines to be acknowledged more and met by every article to insure a newsletter with little to no mistakes.

Rebecca Patton

rebel851351 — 2014-04-23 16:14:14 UTC

I spent one week preparing and working on my article. My article has many good qualities in it but one of them is that it looks at new technology in the world and what is weird and unique about it. I could improve I many aspects the most obvious one id that I can improve my style of writing. I think that this newsletter has improved due to all of the new articles that have been added to this issue and I think that it can be improved if all articles were added to the newsletter. I think that this newsletter is good and not that much that can be improved.

Damon Lanum

Damonl — 2014-04-23 16:14:22 UTC

I felt that this article was a chance for me to create a more successful article in terms of how STEM should be represented. although there were still issues, I believe this article had more time invested in it than my previous submissions. One good thing that stands out in the article is the length, this time around I was the one who actually wrote the main body, while Hunter provided the important interview. I felt it displayed the seniors, as a whole, in a positive way. Improvements for the next article definitely need to include more interviews as well as pictures. The overall essay is a step up from the previous issues, it now looks like a professional newsletter, which is what STEM should be presenting. My only suggestion for the next, and last, newsletter is to include more color, the white background is a distraction to the important articles. I also feel like the editors should take the news letter into their hands, like what is expected of them, and make sure each and every article is submitted not only on time, but completed. I feel the people putting the whole thing together should use their position to their advantage and improve the articles as well as the entire newsletter.

Chase Wilson

chase_wilson — 2014-04-23 16:16:50 UTC

Austin and I spent 3 or 4 days to prepare for the article which included getting interviews and pictures of the projects that we were going over. Our article was good because it goes over a device that not many people know about and it goes in depth on what it does and how it works. I could improve by not picking to work with the other two people in our group. They didn't do anything and I rally don't want to be giving them a free grade. The issue looked very professional and I really do like the new site that we are using. The only problem I have as of now is that there are missing places in the article and it makes it look very lazy like we put it together in a night. I want to see more videos for other articles so it looks like we worked hard on something that will be shown to the public.

Koby Bounheuangvilay

kobyboun — 2014-04-23 16:17:26 UTC

beau and i used our time to create our interview questions and film the interview. we interviewed Danielle Cassidy about her life after high school, we also got a video of the interview to put in the newsletter. for the next newsletter i will remember to email the article to ms. lloyd and heather. i really like how this website is more interactive than smore.

Tyler McMahon

armani_frye — 2014-04-23 16:18:55 UTC

I had spent a day preparing questions for the interview with my freshman over their Rube Goldberg Machine project, our article thoroughly detailed the freshman's work on the Goldberg's and what their goals were. In order to improve on the next article, I should choose a more reliable freshman, that will actually send me their answers, instead of blowing it off. I suggest making sure you pick reliable interviewees, so that we can ensure we are getting the most detail in our articles as possible.

Michael Morgan

2014-04-23 16:20:54 UTC

Me and my team, which included josh Selman and Corey Mallon, spent countless hours preparing for this months newsletter article. I think this is the best we have ever done when both writing and preparing for our article. Every member of our team brought what they said they would bring for the newsletter workday, which is substantially more then the other articles that we did which typically only included one interview and maybe a picture if we were lucky. This article included three interviews and three pictures. For the next newsletter we can try to make the article a little more interesting by maybe adding a video along with multiple pictures and interviews. I think that a majority of the April newsletter is excellent, and if everyone had their articles turned in then it might be the best newsletter STEM has done. For the next newsletter I think we could improve it by maybe having two workdays so that people can perfect their articles and actually finish their articles to have a full newsletter.

Christian Thomas

ctviolinmeastro — 2014-04-23 16:21:59 UTC

In this months newsletter, I spent more time than I usually do on the article for the newsletter. The quality of the article was a lot better. Thought this article was more in depth than the older articles I have been responsible for. I think we're we could improve is, striving for even more quality and having the article set more ideal, so when it comes to the work day. Compiling the whole thing together would go faster. Overall the whole newsletter is a lot better than the last one. Would improve on the background of the article. Right now it looks a little plain. We should try to implement background schemes to bring the newsletter alive and exciting.

Austin Megallon

2014-04-23 16:22:02 UTC

Our team spent four days preparing our article. The most time consuming part was getting interviews from both the teacher, Mrs.Griffith, and a student because there was a substitute for a day that we were supposed to collect interviews. We also had trouble getting an interview from a student because the student we had selected got fired from his group. Even making questions for the interviews were somewhat difficult because the project had just started. Our article highlights different teaching methods because the objective of the project was to get students to understand simple machines but this was done through an unconventional way. We could include a video of the project working if time allows it because they we took information early on in the project. It looks like our newsletter has evolved quite a bit compared to the last issue. A few extra features could be used to make it easier to use like mabye a calendar of events

Hunter Marks

hmarks4 — 2014-04-23 16:24:20 UTC

I do like the new layout, it looks more like a newsletter over smore.i think we should cut any articles that are not submitted in time that way we don't have any blank spaces in the article. granted, if it hasn't been sent out yet, i understand. I spent most of my time on the interview, which is also what i found to be the most fun. This newsletter, there is a new attitude towards the articles and i feel like they were a little better than last month.

Armani Frye

armani_frye — 2014-04-23 16:25:12 UTC

I spent most of my time preparing and woking on the article out of class days before it was due. Our article had many interviews instead of just one or two which is what made it good. I can improve for the next newsletter by adding a video instead of just pictures of the people. I really like this issue of the newsletter! It is not boring and has more videos/pictures than the previous newsletters. Turning everything on time is a great way to improve the newsletter that way there are no white spots or blank pages.

Gage Gwin

2014-04-23 16:25:14 UTC

The newsletter is now being published on a new website called joomag. It will provide the audience a different way to view the newsletter that will hopefully be more interactive than it was on smoore. So far is has been a great success and the articles that have been turned in have been a lot better since last newsletter. The editing job for me was a bit different due to the fact that it was a new website for the public to see. Figuring out different commands was challenging to say the least but it turned out to be a better experience for us all

Justin Bryant

2014-04-23 16:27:37 UTC

I think the new website is an improvement over the old one and makes the whole newsletter easier to read, even if it is harder to edit. for the next newsletter we should have a video of either the seniors saying good bye or the rest of stem saying good bye to them

skyler

2014-04-23 16:28:15 UTC

Kyra, Karina, and I spent our work day in class finding different pictures the represented the students and what we do in the academy. Overall the layout of the newsletter is a lot better, the content page makes it more user friendly. Having pictures that go with every article gives the read a better image about what is going on in the article and what it is really talking about. A way that would improve the newsletter would be to add a little bit of color to the pages with the articles that way it is more appealing to the eye and makes whoever reading it more interested in looking at